A group of activists who believe in global warming are planning to use drones to disrupt traffic at London’s Heathrow Airport, CNN reports.
The group in question is called Heathrow Pause, and have said that they will only fly their drones “at head-height, far away from the runways and planes” in order to pose no risk to the aircraft. But nonetheless, they say that their goal is to disrupt Heathrow’s operations out of protest of plans to build a third runway at Europe’s busiest airport.
The group’s leader, 49-year-old Linda Davidsen, has acknowledged that this form of protest is illegal, and not only expects to be arrested, but hopes that this will be the case. She believes that being arrested will add “an element of sacrifice” to their protest. According to CNN, she has already quit her job as an accountant in order to focus full-time on protesting, and is currently “living off her life savings.”
Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police Laurence Taylor, responding to the announcement of the planned protest, called it a “deliberate and criminal targeting of an essential part of the UK’s national infrastructure that thousands of people rely on every day, and it will not be tolerated.”